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ACIM Workbook Lesson 293 Insights

“All fear is past and only love is here.”

I always get what I ask for in my deepest heart of hearts. If I want to see through the Holy Spirit’s eyes, I will receive that. If I want to see through the ego’s eyes, I will see a world of fear. I will see a world of unhappiness, depression and death. I will see specialness, competition and winning or losing. Is this what I would see today? It is my choice.

The Holy Spirit will show me the real world, where only Love is real. The Holy Spirit will show me the real world, underneath the sounds of fear.

Today I open my mind to see the real world. I open my mind to recognize that all fear is past and only Love is here. Today I would practice holding Holy Spirit’s hand, showing me the difference between the unreal and the real. I would let my mind be healed today.

If I experience anything less than perfect peace, I have forgotten that the past is gone. I am holding the past in my mind and overlaying it on the present so that I cannot see the Love that is there. Time was made by the ego as a mechanism for the mind to use to try to hold on to the past. It is trying to say that the past exists and can influence the present. This is the basis for maintaining guilt.

If we did not retain the past in our mind through the belief in time, there would be no memory of the past to feel guilty about. There would be no basis for worry about the future, which is simply a belief that the past can repeat itself because it is not over. In the thought system of time, the past is always lurking, ready to project on the present to hide it so that fear of the future can be maintained.

In the ego thought system, the present moment is always avoided, either by projecting into the future or covering over the present with projections from what is believed to be the still real past. To the ego, the present is to be avoided at all costs, because the ego cannot exist in the present, where only Love is found.

Letting go of the past is what the Course calls forgiveness. Grievances are always about the past. When the past is gone from our mind, there can be no grievances. Most of our grievances we keep unconscious. We may go through many days feeling pretty good. But then somebody says the “wrong” thing one too many times and the grievance raises its angry head. It shows us that forgiveness was needed. Some part of our mind had set a limit on how many offenses it would accept before it would complain. Unconsciously we were keeping a tally, and when the threshold was crossed, the anger or resentment rose to the surface.

At this point we have two options. One is to try to ignore it and hope will go away. Perhaps if we avoid contact with the perpetrator who brought the grievance to the surface. This self deception will seem to work until the next one comes along who does the wrong thing one too many times. Then we discover nothing really changed.

Our other option is to bring the grievance to the Holy Spirit, honestly and openly. We don’t need to hide from the grievance. We do need to acknowledge its presence in our mind and then turn it over to the Holy Spirit. If we release it fully into His hands with an open mind, His Light will show us the basis for release. We will see that where we thought there was harm, nothing occurred. We will recognize the call for Love in the behavior of another and in ourselves.

The Holy Spirit will show us the Love that we are in a way that we can recognize and accept. He will show us that the past and the fear that came with it is gone and only Love is here. Now the grievance is healed.

We may still find grievances coming up because we have not recognized what makes all grievances the same. And so we must practice bringing each grievance as it appears to the Holy Spirit. Gradually we will see the sameness in them all, until at last forgiveness is complete and we see the real world shining in the reflection of God’s Love and we are ready to accept God’s hand as He reaches to us to draw us into the Heaven of His Heart.

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Reference Keys forA Course in Miracles Quotes

How to Read References for Quotes from A Course
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Below are example references
to specific sentences using the notation
of the Second & Third Editions of A Course in Miracles published
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ACIM Minister Training

Inspired by the principles presented in A Course in Miracles, this
ministry training focuses on accepting the mind healing that is guided by the
Teacher within, the Holy Spirit. As our minds are healed, we become Holy Spirit’s
instruments of healing. For more information click here.

ACIM Practitioner Courses

If you would like a deeper understanding of key principles of
A Course in Miracles, the 24 Pathways of Light ACIM Practitioner
courses provide a complete, multimedia package to help you make ACIM
principles a ready resource to call upon in your mind throughout your
day. Click here for more information.

Forgiving KevinAudio book by Rev. Larry Glenz.
A moving and inspiring true story of a father/son relationship that withstood seven years of addiction, recovery, and
relapse. More….

Healing Family RelationshipsApplying the
Principles of A Course in Miracles 6 CD audio book by Rev. Myron Jones.
Learn how family relationships offer fertile grounds for forgiveness and healing
your judgments of the world. More.